by Srinivas.S
Resting or recovering—
Does it matter which?
Between two of your edits,
I wonder why you decided
To create me in the first place.
Am I a sublimation of your flaws
In the conscious manner of a style,
Or a mere masking of them
By matters of adopted substance?
If I was really constructed
From the cast of your convictions,
Why do you unmake parts of me
And remake other parts, and often,
At the popular altars of transience?
Or, was it one of your whims
That whispered life into me;so that
You might justify the many times
You would cut me up to match
Your metre of the day or hour;
Only to sew me up later
With shallow punctuation marks
That leave deep elliptical scars?
Have you ever considered
How I feel about those surgeries?
You are inclined to think
They are for my own good—
Tough love is what you call it;
Or so my siblings tell me
When they recount their stories—
But what can you possibly know
Of my health, when you measure
Your own cup of happiness
By what the cups of others hold?
Besides… you refuse to let go
Of yourself, or me; and I wonder
What it says about us—you and me!
Then there is the foggy question
Of identity: do I have any—
I mean, any beyond your name
That trails me wherever I go?
You know, the way you press
Pen to paper tells me a lot:
Monday through Wednesday,
You search for your own identity
Through the unlikeliest metaphors;
And abandon the notion
From Thursday through Sunday,
As a tapestry of everything felt,
Or as a blob of Nothing, experienced;
Before the week repeats itself…
Allow me, therefore, as a fragment
Of your frustrations, to give you
Some advice: the next time you sit
To create someone like me,
Think carefully, then think again,
Whether my birth would
Add to your heart or to the world.
If all it is going to do is subtract,
Leave it unborn; for the ghouls
Of cut-up poems are worse
Than the souls of those unformed.
